Obey Our Order In Letter And Spirit: SC 'Requests' Madras HC [Read Order]

We request the High Court to obey our order in letter and in spirit, the Supreme Court said taking note of the fact that the Madras High Court did not comply with its direction to dispose of a writ petition within the time stipulated by it.

MG Saravanan had filed a writ petition before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court against setting up of a Petroleum Retail Outlet Station contending that the distance between the Outlet sought to be set up and the school is within the prohibited (as per a GO issued by Tamil Nadu Government) distance of 100 meters. The High Court initially granted a status quo order, but later vacated it after hearing some of the respondents, without giving any reason.

When the Special Leave Petition filed by Saravanan against the vacation of Interim order came up before the Apex Court, it requested the High Court to take up the matter and dispose of the same within a period of two weeks.

When the matter again was brought up after more than two months by filing a miscellaneous application, the bench headed by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman noted that the case was being shuttled between Madurai and Madras benches of the High Court. Therefore, the bench, also comprising of Justices Navin Sinha and Indira Banerjee ordered:

"Despite the fact that by our order dated 18.06.2020, we had requested the High Court to take up the matter and dispose of the same in two weeks, unfortunately, this has not been done, as the matter was shuttled between Madurai and Madras. We, therefore, request the High Court to obey our order dated 18.06.2020 in letter and in spirit. The Madurai Bench is, therefore, requested to take it up on priority basis and dispose of the same immediately."

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